I, Tonya Has a Triple Axel to Grind
Movie review: I, Tonya
Margot Robbie goes for the gold as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in Craig Gillespie's dazzling ode to dysfunction that captures the early daze of reality-based entertainment
After the Boys of Summer Have Gone, the Iceman Cometh
Sports: Baseball
Looking back at the year of ball that was, Rod Mickleburgh finds the big league diamonds were rough, but the minor games at the likes of Nat Bailey Stadium were small gem experiences in a priceless setting.
By Rod Mickleburgh
And so baseball winter has begun, made even harsher by the tragic death of Roy Halladay. The hopeful breezes of spring, the lazy hazy crazy days of summer and the beautifully slanted light of fall have all departed from the diamond, leaving us to bundle up and shiver through the bleak wintry months of no baseball. In that sweet, far-off time when I was a kid, the Series was always over by the second week of October, in time for the players to do their fall hunting. Now, with so many wildcard and playoff games piled on, the Series stretches into November, as ridiculous a month as ever was for the summer game. In November, you don’t think baseball, you think winter.
There was hardly a “wow” ending. The highly-anticipated seventh game ...
Jay Baruchel on Goons, loons and Canadians’ saloon-speak
Interview: Jay Baruchel
The veteran actor and star of How to Train Your Dragon makes his directorial debut with Goon 2: Last of the Enforcers, but the closet poet says his movie is about more than small-town hockey, it's about the very heart and expletive-laden soul of the Canadian identity
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER, BC — Jay Baruchel emerges from the elegantly muted, sand coloured hallway with the urgency and focus of a grey squirrel gathering mid-winter nuts.
He’s on a mission and if it means tipping over a garbage can or two, traversing a frozen road from an overhead transmission wire or even fluffing up his tale for a confrontation with the unsuspecting public — he’s ready.
The Canadian actor known for playing Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon, as well as earning a place alongside Tom Cruise as one of the bawdy pranksters in Tropic Thunder, recently directed his first feature, Goon 2: Last of the Enforcers.
He says it was the achievement of a life-long ...
Muhammad Ali: The Greatest, in All Ways, Always
Tribute: Muhammad Ali
No one can quantify the extent of outrage and villification that spewed down on Ali when he turned his back on everything American. Yet, with everything to lose, Ali stood up for his rights as a black man, loudly and unabashedly.
By Rod Mickleburgh
A tough week for us sports fans of another generation. Losing two great heroes of our youth: Muhammad Ali, and now, Gordie Howe (he never changed his name to Gordon..). This is about the champ.
It’s been said many, many times, but it remains true. Never again will we see the likes of Muhammad Ali. “For all you kids out there”, it’s difficult to convey just how dominant a figure he was during those first 20 years he reigned as by far the most beloved and admired athlete in the world. Evidence of his unsurpassed skill and courage in the rink are easily found on YouTube. And most accounts written after Ali’s death relate in great detail his bold, in-your-face defiance of white America. He stuck it to ...
The Bronze straddles a low bar
Movie review: The Bronze
Melissa Rauch's send-up of competitive gymnastics includes an acrobatic sex scene and cartoonish characters in tracksuits, but lacks the gritty heart required for a sports movie -- even an insincere one
Close encounters on the third base line
Sports: Jays' Spring Training in Dunedin
Whether you're sponging up the baseball, sponging off the spilled beer, or buying a sponge in a seaside tourist shop, catching Blue Jays spring training in Dunedin is a ball fan's beery version of Valhalla
By Jay Stone
DUNEDIN, Fla. — On my first day in Dunedin this year, I went to a spring training baseball game and saw a pitcher named Pat Venditte, who can throw with either arm. He has a special six-finger glove with a thumb at each end, and he can put it on whichever hand he wants and throw with the other arm.
Venditte, who is in the Toronto Blue Jays camp, has been in the league for a while — he was with the Yankees two years ago and Oakland last year — and there’s even a rule named after him. It says that he has to declare which arm he’s going to throw with against a switch-hitter. This keeps baseball, which is kind of a leisurely sport anyway, from becoming an endless game of chicken, with Venditte moving his glove from ...
Race runs a familiar circuit
Movie review: Race
Complete with slow-motion shots of spent athletes crossing the finish line and sepia-tinted digital recreations of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Stephen Hopkins's Race lives up to sports-movie expectation as it tells the Jesse Owens story without upsetting white people
A direct hit to the head of the NFL
Movie review: Concussion
Thanks to a cast that's just as comfortable with comedy as drama, Peter Landesman's forensic examination of the NFL's inaction on head injuries is more than a preachy lesson in institutional denial, it's a gentle testament to the importance of human compassion
Creed knows where it’s coming from
Movie Review: Creed
Fruitvale Station's Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan reunite in Creed, an elegant and surprisingly emotional reboot of the Rocky franchise
Dan Halldorson: Unsung star of Canadian golf
Tribute
In the modern era of professional showmanship, Dan Halldorson defined low-profile sportsmanship
By Rod Mickleburgh
You probably didn’t notice, but one of my favourite golfers recently shuffled off this mortal coil. In fact, most of you probably don’t even have a favourite golfer. But never mind.
Apart from that, the reason you may not have noticed his demise, is that Dan Halldorson, tragically done in by a stroke at 63, defined the phrase “low profile.” Not only was he a Canadian professional golfer before Mike Weir, he had the on-course charisma of a dozing accountant. Not many noticed him during his golfing career, and after he retired, he was soon unjustly forgotten. Me, I loved the guy.
There was something so unassuming about Dan Halldorson, so unlike any other golfer on the PGA tour. Shunning the flashy polyester slacks and other riotous garb of the time, Dan preferred loose, almost baggy, dark pants. When the weather fell below 80 degrees, he often ...
